Return to the Academy
by FullMetal Alchemistress
Summary: POST BOOK 3 After a year of searching for Dimitri, the stigoi seem to have vanished, reappearing two years later. Needing all the help they can get, Rose returns. What happens when Rose thinks she knows a way to return Dimitri to his former self? SPOILERS
1. The Return Part 1

**Jeez. I say this every time I do it, but I should NOT be starting ANOTHER story. I have a ton that are unfinished, and a few WIPs yet to be uploaded. Anyways, let me give you some background so I don't get the same complaints. If you don't read this, don't complain!**

**Rose is 21, she left the academy on her 18th birthday, thus she has been gone for 3 years. This story takes place after book 3, Shadow-Kissed. Ignore what happens in book 4 (since it comes out in, like, a week). I DID add that Rose is looking for the blond, too, since I think he should be taken down in revenge. Teehee…**

**-x-x-x-x-**

Nothing had changed. Not a thing. Not a damned thing. With two exception. I glanced around the campus slowly, allowing myself to take it all in and become accustomed to the ever-so-familiar setting. My boots made soft thuds against the concrete path, and aside from the occasional rustling leaf, it was the only sound around. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought the place was deserted.

But I did know better.

Unfortunately.

On high alert, I scanned the area around me. The only thing in my life that had changed was the strigoi. They went into hiding nearly two years ago and, despite my tries, seemed to have been wiped off the face of the earth. That is, until a month ago when small massacres began and everyone knew who it was. Or rather, what it was. After the second massacre, everyone was on high alert and even some on lock down.

I proceeded along, not knowing where I was headed.

"Well if it isn't Guardian Hathaway, coming back to the academy," a voice filled with emotion chirped from behind me.

Sighing, I turned around and smiled. "You know, I never actually graduated."

He took a drag on his cigarette and chuckled. "A shame," he murmured, stepping closer to me. "Though, that tattoo on your neck that represents the uncountable numbers of strigoi you've killed might suggest otherwise. But that's beside the point." He suddenly grinned, large and toothy, displaying his fangs. "You are still as beautiful as the day you left."

"I'd hope so. I'm only twenty-one." While I had changed a bit, looking more like an adult and less like a teenager, Adrian had not changed a bit. Everything from his style and flirtatious personality to his bad habits remained exactly as I had remembered.

"You've changed," he noted seriously.

"My aura?" I guessed, but he shook his head and gestured to the cigarette in his hand.

"It's in your eyes," he murmured, so close to me that I could smell the cloves on his breath. "Some sort of…soullessness, though that's not the correct word at all, but it's the closest…" he brushed his fingers across my cheek and I swatted his hand away and took a step away.

"Trust me, I have my soul," I said firmly and began walking away before he could say anything more on the subject. If I knew the old Adrian—obnoxious and persistent—he would follow.

Which he did.

"What are you still doing here anyways? I thought you'd follow Lissa to the Royal Court and live there."

"Well, I was asked to teach here." I began laughing. "Hey, come on now, I'm not that bad. And I only mentor students who haven't specialized with the rest of your class. Those who eventually specialize move on with their class, those that don't are mentored by either Lissa or me."

I stopped dead in my tracks and turn to look at him, disbelief coloring my face. "What? Lissa is still here?"

"Of course. I thought you knew. You know, the—"

"I haven't unblocked the bond in years," I muttered, leaving him standing behind me as I continued toward the main office. I figured I should check in with Kirova, or whoever the current head of St. Vladimir's Academy was.

After the disappearance of strigoi, the academy had sent a few guardians around to places that needed them. Now that these massacres were occurring everywhere, it was safe to assume they were back. And the academy needed all the help it could get. Since I wasn't exactly invited, I hoped they would accept me anyways. Even if they didn't, I'd be hunting down two particular strigoi—Dimitri and the blond one that turned Dimitri into a Strigoi.

The secretary looked up, eyes wide when I walked in.

"C-can I help you with something, Rose?" she asked quietly.

I smiled politely and asked for Kirova or whoever the head of the school was, since I had no idea if Kirova was still there or not. She nodded anyways and scurried off.

"Rose Hathaway, to what do we owe the pleasure?" a voice asked, a hidden smile in it, even though the headmistress's face held no such thing.

"I've come to help," I said with false confidence."

"You're not a guardian," she stated.

"I may not be a guardian, but I am good," I reminded her.

"That you are," she agreed. "And you are needed." I felt my stomach untwist and I sighed in relief. Half of me had expected her to turn me away, to turn her back on my like I had the academy three years ago. But another half of me had expected her to allow me to stay and help—the more help the better.

"But," she said, and I felt it coming, the bad part to the agreement, "only if Ms. Dragomir allows it. She's the one organizing the guardians from off campus." When I didn't say anything, she continued. "You need to find her and sign in. She'll give you further instructions."

I nodded and she walked off, while I left the building in confusion and fear.


	2. The Return Part 2

**Hey everyone! Another chapter is here, but please review and quess what'll happen or tell me what you think or say hi or something kthxbai :)**

After a few seconds of standing outside the door, I finally snapped out of my daze. I wasn't sure whether I should unblock the bond, pull down all the barriers that separated me from Lissa, or leave them as they were and leave the academy again.

But deep down, I knew I couldn't leave. I didn't have it in me to leave Lissa again, even if she never forgave me. And, again, there was that half-of-me deal where half of me believes one thing while the other believes the opposite. Chance, that's what it all came down to.

I put one boot clad foot in front of the other and started to walk, planning to circle the campus before I made any decisions. I really wanted to stick to that plan, but as I walked around, the dusty memories of the last few weeks at the academy kicked up, but it wasn't until I'd made it to the back of the campus that I felt my careful grip on the block slip, crumble to nothing.

Like a jolt of electricity, I felt every single reason I'd left slam into my body, every memory I'd spent with Dimitri strangling me. I fell to my knees and stared off blankly into the trees, knowing that somewhere back there was that lonely, dusty cabin…

I took a deep breath, going through the exercises I'd usually gone through in tough moments to calm myself done. Slowly I changed position so that I was sitting cross-legged, the school behind me, the trees in front of me. But I looked at neither. I looked up. Up at the sky, tinges of pink mixing with the dark, navy blue. Another human day gone by, another vampire day beginning.

I squeezed my eyes shut. If Lissa hadn't known I was there, hadn't known the bond returned, she did now. Shock, anger, sadness, happiness, nervousness, dozens of emotions flooded toward me through the bond.

_Come. Find. Me._

Three simple words with millions of ways to say them and portray different emotions. But this…this was severe anger and twisted, black rage. Not the kind of blackness that used to drive her insane. That was…dark and empty; this blackness was like…hate.

_Rose…_

"I'm coming, I'm coming," I muttered, standing up and brushing off the back of my pants.

Following the bond, I knew she was coming out towards the front of the building and I met her half way.

Even after three years, her beauty had not dimmed. A small breeze knocked dead leaves off the trees, adding to her glow. Her pale blond hair hung straight down her back, the wind tousling the ends, while her pale skin seemed to glow in the sunset, the pink and orange only added to the warm colors of the autumn trees.

The bright green eyes I'd loved so much widened and I stopped walking, carefully studying her expression and the emotions within the bond. Her face was complete shock, but the bond said anger, fear, and happiness raged a war within her. She wanted to hug me, hit me, question me; she didn't know where to start.

"Kirova told me to come to you to sign in," I said quietly over the space, trying to hide my fear and nervousness over seeing her after having abandoned her three years ago. "She said it was up to you whether I stayed or not."

She took a step toward me and I tensed, but continued. "I mean, I know you need guardians, and I know I never graduated, but you know what I've done." Another step, slow, careful, and calculated. "If you don't need me, there are other places that do." Lie. "I have other things that need to get done." Truth. "So—"

The only thing I felt next was shock. Pure shock coming from me, the bond, Lissa. She had taken a running start and slammed into me, pulling me into a tight hug, her arms wrapping around my shoulders and her hands digging into my back.

And for the first time in my life, I found myself completely broken and lost. I didn't know what to do. It was way beyond me, way beyond anything I had learned. In all my life, no where in any book I had ever read through, no textbook, did it say what I should do when I abandon my moroi for 3 years, then come back only to be tackle-hugged by said moroi. No amount of training had prepared me for this.

Did this mean she forgave me? I just stood there, motionless and shocked, my arms hanging uselessly by my sides. I begged them to move, to hug Lissa back, but for some reason, I couldn't.

"What are you doing?" I whispered down to her. Had I been her, the first thing I would have done upon the return of my runaway guardian was knock them in the teeth. Let them know what they did was wrong. Out of line.

She looked up at me and anger had colored her features. She pulled away, reached up and slapped me. Hard. Remember those two exceptions I mentioned, one of them being the disappearance of the strigoi? Well, the other was the battle training for the moroi.

And Lissa had trained hard.

Though, since my training had started so much longer before hers had, had I smacked her like that, she would have had a bruise. All she did to me was make the skin sting and tingle.

"Much better," I muttered.

"I don't want to hurt you, Rose," she snapped.

"Well, someone has to put me in my place. And now that no one is around to do that anymore…" my mind flashed quickly to Dimitri before I smothered the feelings.

"Rose," she softer, but still stern.

"Lissa, listen" I started, cutting off whatever she was going to say. "Leaving may have been a mistake, but I'm not going to apologize. It was something I needed to do for _me_. My whole life was about you; protecting you, helping you, caring for you. I needed to do something for myself. Take care of myself. Something deep down is telling me that I still need to be looking."

"You didn't find him yet?" she whispered quietly.

I shook my head. "But I will, I promise you. I promised _him_. I won't apologize for running away, but I will apologize for not treating you the way I should have." A look of confusion flashed across her face. "You were my best friend and I should have regarded you as such. I treated you poorly and I'm sorry."

"Rose," she said, her tone sharp. "You _are_ my best friend. I know I was kind of selfish. I completely disregarded what was going on with you and completely focused on what was going on with me."

"Like it should have been. Don't ever worry about me." She shook her head.

"That's what friends do; they worry about each other. And we're best friends, so we should worry about each other a lot." She looked at me and I tensed further, my nails digging into my palms. "I never expected you to apologize for leaving. I just want you to apologize for not asking for help. I'm a lot stronger than you think."

I laughed darkly.

"What?"

"Dimitri said the same thing," I whispered. "A lot of people did."

She shook her head and sighed. "You don't have to apologize for abandoning me here, but it'll take a bit of time to gain my trust gain."

"I expected as much."

"And I want you to promise me something."

"I promise I won't leave for such a selfish reason," I told her, even though I didn't completely feel that I was being selfish.

She shook her head. "Promise that if you leave, you'll let me come."


	3. The Return Part 3

**A bit longer, but I got carried away. Don't forget to try and guess what'll happen next! I wanna know what you think!! Thanks to those who reviewed.**

"I can't do that," I admitted after an awkward silence.

"Rose, please!" she pleaded.

I hated seeing her like this. Princess Vasilisa, last of the Dragomirs, pleading…

"It's not like I'm asking you to kill me," she snapped, but it was like a slap in the face. So easily I had promised to kill Dimitri. What harm could come from bringing her along?

A lot.

As if reading the turmoil on my face she added, "I'm a lot stronger now than before. You don't always have to protect me."

I sighed in defeat and I felt delight slide over to me from the bond before I even said anything.

"Alright, I promise," I said quietly.

"Good." She took my hand and led me toward the dorms. "First we'll get you signed in, then we'll talk."

"Weren't we just talking?"

"Yes, but we're going to talk purely and solely about _you_." She turned and narrowed her eyes at me and immediately my hand flew to the long, jagged scar on my face; it ran from my left ear, across my cheek, and stopped near my chin. "Later," she said.

Lissa steered me toward the guardian's dorms and up to, presumably, her room.

"Look who it is!" a voice sneered as soon as we stepped into the room. "We should put a leash on you, Rose. You keep running away from us!"

Lissa gave Christian a harsh look, shutting him up instantly. I made the sound of a whip and laughed. Christian had definitely lost any boyish features he'd held, and definitely gained some muscle.

I sat on the edge of the bed as an awkward air settled around us and I realized then what was making me so tense. I'd been gone for three years; everyone had changed so much, including myself. I barely knew anyone anymore. Lissa spoke up before I could really regret returning.

"Alright, you're all ready."

"What now?" Christian asked and I began to wonder what they had been doing before I got here.

"How did you know I was here?" I asked Lissa.

Lissa and Christian both looked at me like I'd suddenly grown a second head.

"Eddie is the guardian at the gate," Christian laughed. My jaw dropped and both of them laughed.

"No way…he…"

"Changed," Lissa sighed. She walked over and took my hand. "Come on, let's go to the library."

The walk to the library was slow, a hint that Lissa's "talk" was going to take a while. It felt good just to be near her again, though in all honesty, on my own, I had never really thought about it that much. Not that she needed to know that.

"So," I prompted, unsure of what she wanted to know.

"How did you know we were looking for help?" She asked quietly, studying the school building like she was seeing it for the first time, its amazing beauty the same as when I left it.

"I was in New York, because to me it screams 'information hub' when I'd heard about a massacre that had happened."

"How? Neither of them made the papers or anything…" her blond eyebrows pulled together and she studied my face.

I smiled. "There are these night clubs in the city. Some have special VIP rooms for vampires and their guardians, some didn't. Those that didn't…well, it was obvious who was a guardian and who was not.

"But it was one with a VIP room that I had had trouble getting into. Had it not been for a moroi I met before, I might not have gotten in. I had been arguing with a security guard—a guardian, no doubt—when she came by and acted like I was her guardian. She got me in and we started to talk."

"About the massacres," Lissa stated.

I nodded. "She asked me if I'd heard anything about them. Then she asked me if I was going back to one of the academies."

"And you said yes?" she guessed.

"Nope." I shoved my hands in my pockets. "I had totally planned on continuing my search. On my own. But when I told her this, she said, 'It's been three years with no luck. Don't you think you need some help? You obviously need some help with this. You're only one person; you can't do it on your own.' And then she started spouting nonsense about teamwork or something."

She laughed. "Sounds like your personality didn't change much."

I just smiled. "I'm still Rose."

We made it to the library and found a table near the back corner where a student was sitting alone, writing furiously in a notebook she was hunched over, pausing every few seconds to push her extremely curly black hair out of her eyes. She had thick black-rimmed glasses and a ton of freckles.

"Hey, Erinn," Lissa greeted, pulling out a chair. Slightly surprised, I sat down in the chair next to her and resting my chin in my hands.

The girl, Erinn, slowly looked up at Lissa over the top of her glasses and smiled shyly.

"Hi, Ms. D."

"This is my best friend, Rose." Erinn and I nodded in acknowledgement. "Time for your next lesson." Erinn shot up, sitting up straight and grinning like Lissa just told her the most amazing news ever.

"Really?"

"Yes. I'm going to teach you how to remove a scar."

"What?" both Erinn and I said at the same time, hers a lot more enthusiastic than mine.

"I'm her next lesson?" I asked flatly.

"More or less," Lissa smiled sheepishly, apologetic thoughts coming my way. "But really, Rose, you can't ell me you're happy to have it there."

"Must have been a painful wound," Erinn commented quietly.

"It was nothing," I muttered.

"Tell me about it later," Lissa said. "Alright, Erinn, this is just like closing a wound, only—"

"Adrian already explained it, but he couldn't show me."

"Okay, then come stand over here," Lissa said, gesturing to the spot next to my left. Once she was there, Lissa pressed her index and middle fingers to the tip of my scar and pressed down _hard_, her other hand at my neck. Slowly she traced the scar, a hot feeling left behind, and stopped half-way. "You want to do the rest?" Erinn nodded vigorously.

"How do you know I didn't want that scar?" I asked, but Lissa just gave me a doubtful look.

Carefully, Erinn placed her fingers on my cheek, shy, like she was trying not to cause pain, as if the scar still hurt me.

"Don't worry about hurting me," I said to ease any thoughts of the sort. "I'm tough enough."

She copied Lissa's exact movement and the same heat was left in her finger's trail.

"Done," she declared, leaning back away from me. Lissa raised her eyebrows and placed a hand on Erinn's shoulders.

Almost afraid, I reached up to touch the scar and only felt smooth skin. I almost felt like crying.

Almost.


End file.
